Not quite a TAAT (I hope) but a follow on from the Are You a Feminist thread....

[BertrandRussell]

If you said no, could you say why? And if possible, could you give examples- I know a couple of people have said that they think feminism has gone too far, and feminists think all men are rapists that sort of thing. If you think that, could you say why? What have you read, or listened to that brought you to that belief? No “tearing to shreds” I promise!

To your original post, OP - I am not a feminist because I believe in equality of sexes and not in revenge for history. The feminists are so militant and man-hating in their views that their cause has become rather repulsive in its extremism.
Loathe extremists of all kinds.

I don't hate men...

"The feminists are so militant and man-hating in their views that their cause has become rather repulsive in its extremism."
Wake-is that the impression you have gained of the feminists posting on this thread?

To your original post, OP - I am not a feminist because I believe in equality of sexes and not in revenge for history

Feminism IS about working towards equality of the sexes. 🤦🏻‍♀️ That’s like saying you’re not racist because of the slave trade. It makes no logical sense.

If you believe in working towards equality of the sexes, that’s the central core of feminism. Everything else is peoples other opinions on how to do that.

Socialisation into gendered styles is obviously cultural, but you're never NOT going to be influenced by the culture you live in - you can only swap it for another type of pressure. No choice is ever 'free' in that regard. Who you are is always going to be who your friends and family want you to be.

The big trouble is that you can't say that gendered toys, and styles are bad without attacking the people who do choose to be feminine or masculine. There's no point protesting "but I'M not saying that. Where is anybody saying that?" because it's inherent in the belief. It's saying I don't like your taste or your choices and I don't want your influence near me or mine. It's always going to be taken as a personal insult.

And influenced as we all are, unless you're a firm believer in determinism you still have the free will to ignore that influence. Blaming socialisation feels like not taking responsibility for your own choices to many people.

The big trouble is that you can't say that gendered toys, and styles are bad without attacking the people who do choose to be feminine or masculine.

I disagree. There’s no issue with the toy. The toy is a neutral item . I’ve no problem with girls wanting to wear dresses and be all pink if that’s what they want. There’s no criticism of a boy playing with a truck or a girl playing with a doll.

The problem comes when said girl wants a microscope and is told no, that’s for boys Or a boy is told dolls are for sissies.

The big trouble is that you can't say that gendered toys, and styles are bad without attacking the people who do choose to be feminine or masculine.

Of course you can choose masculine or feminine toys. Masculine and feminine can mean different things to different people.

Take cooking. It's all just taking food and making it edible.

But there are loads of different nuanced ways of presenting it as 'masculine' or 'feminine'.

How to make chicken last seven days, or watching a male chef on TV. Both cooking. But one slightly more on the feminine spectrum and one slightly more on the masculine.

What you can't say is that it depends on whether you are male or female.

It's your (five year old) mates that tell you "It's not for boys / girls." and the pressure comes from wanting to fit in / not offend their tastes. They mean it's not for people like us... are you one of us? Or are you one of the Other People?

Short of being a hermit it's inescapable and not limited to gendered styles.

And also kind of what I was jabbering about when I was talking about the critical mass of women in Chemistry and Biology. I don't think terribly many people think too hard about their destination industry, but they do think about what their mates and potential friends to be will be doing. Everybody wants to hang around with people like them.

But gendered toys aren't "bad" inherently. Nothing wrong with trucks and dolls and kitchens and garages. What is wrong is saying that they are exclusive to boys or girls. And yes of course we can rise abound our socialisation. But not really at 5. Or even at 13! And not really if, like many people, you don't accept that it is a "thing".

ReliefOfChaos

I don't think we are disagreeing.

We all work within the system. We are all subject to peer pressure.

At the moment, peer pressure is saying you can't do that you're a girl/boy.

Peer pressure would work in exactly the same way, if it said of course you can do that.

I've seen this toy issue unfold in my lifetime.

When I was a child/teenager, the social atmosphere was nowhere near as gendered as it is today.

Partly because consumer products weren't as widely available and cheap as they are now.

But also, as the poster above in Sweden says, toys seemed to have far more of a dual male/female purpose.

Building blocks (Lego), teddies, rollerskates, balls, skipping ropes. All interchangeable between boys and girls because none of it was designated one sex or the other.

And of course there were things that veered towards one or the other sex. Like Barbies and action men (both are dolls though!).

It's just wasn't so prevalent.

"Building blocks (Lego), teddies, rollerskates, balls, skipping ropes. All interchangeable between boys and girls because none of it was designated one sex or the other."

Absolutely. In my lifetime all these things have become "gendered" I assume the main driver was commercial- if you make a pair of roller skates pink and sparkly, then they can't be handed down to a little brother, so you have to buy another pair. The idea of girl or boy pushchairs would have been considered ludicrous 30 years ago. But the commercial imperative has had the additional consequence of reinforcing the gender stereotypes. A vicious circle.

My DC have been choosing their own clothes since they were 2, before they understood the concept of genderisation. My DDs liked dresses, my DSs liked t-shirts and trousers. Interestingly, DS1 wears lots of tops from the women's section as an adult. He also likes flowery hairclips.

I think the main reason "gender" persists is that we exist in a predominantly heterosexual world and we're driven by sexual attraction and traits or physical appearances in the opposite sex that are opposite or "other" to our own. It's impossible to know whether a woman feeling the need to eg. wear high heels is "conforming to the patriarchy" or expressing her own innate female sexuality. Probably it's a combination of the two, but ultimately does it really matter if she owns that choice in the context of the world we live in?

It's a bit of a pain in the arse, to be honest. Because I actually like sparkles and glitter. On a very basic, intrinsic level. Not as a product.

I actually like looking at tubes of glitter. It never seems to translate quite so beautifully when it's sprayed on a product, mind you.

The thing is, so did both my sons. Until they went to school.

Then it was girly. And not to be borne.

The feminists are so militant and man-hating in their views that their cause has become rather repulsive in its extremism

Not on this thread but certainly other threads.

Feminism is different for everyone. Some want to wipe out man altogether, some to blend men and women into one bland being in neutral colours and names, others want women in dresses and high heels to be treated equally to men.

Probably it's a combination of the two, but ultimately does it really matter if she owns that choice in the context of the world we live in?

It's a very interesting phenomena, sapphireblu.

Because whilst you're unaware of it, it's perceived, internally as a personal choice.

But as soon as you see quite how heavily promoted it is in culture and media, you start to question.

And once it starts, it snowballs.

How much pressure women are under, to be decorative, and why. And where it differs between the sexes. (Women's razors are sprayed pink and you can charge double).

And then, of course, you get involved in that knotty problem of how much of this is genetic, because we are programmed to be attractive to a mate.

But perhaps that's another thread...

"Probably it's a combination of the two, but ultimately does it really matter if she owns that choice in the context of the world we live in?".

This is one of my hobby horses! This whole idea of "free choice". One of the things that non feminists get most angry about is the suggestion that anything they do is not a completely free choice. But nobody ever makes a choice in a vacuum. A little girl who chooses a pink dress does not have some sort of innate love of pink dresses. All the subliminal influences on her from before she was born have influenced that choice. My dd was an incredibly "girly" girl (you can imagine how that amused my friends!) Her first full sentence was "I not wear that". She was 14 months old and "that" was a navy blue hoodie with pictures of planets on it.

"Feminism is different for everyone. Some want to wipe out man altogether, some to blend men and women into one bland being in neutral colours and names"
Can I ask what you have read or watched or heard that has brought you to this opinion?

We always had a mix of "boy" and "girl" toys lying around because we had children of both sexes. They all had their individual preferences for certain things, but quite often they would play with the same toys differently. For instance, DS had a phase when he used to spend ages lining up toy cars in certain formations and then he used to stand in the sofa and throw bombs at them. If DD joined in with this game, she had certain cars that were her favourites and she gave them names and the cats would have conversations with each other . In most ways they would play in similar styles, but there were a few differences, that were more marked when they had friends over.

Sorry cars not cats

And I know I keep asking that question and people hate me for it but it's because nobody will ever answer. Where are all these women who hate men, who want to eradicate men or who want to reduce everyting to grey neutrality? I am very old and know a lot of people and I don't know any. I don't think I have read anything like that since the early 1970s.....

sapphireblu

Yeah, I'm on the fence about how physiological differences translate into behaviour. How much is innate and how much is socialised.

The only thing I do know, is you cannot test for what is innate.

But you can sure as hell test for socialisation.

And the results are so eye-opening.

One experiment was watching toddlers climb a slide.

The parents consistently allowed the boy to climb higher, encouraging them. But stopping the girl with, I think you've gone far enough, or holding onto them.

When there is zero difference in their capability, or indeed desire to climb.

The BBC programme no more girls and boys was fascinating.

Children were dressed in clothes of the opposite sex and given to a carer who asserted that they were never biased. The carer thought the girls were boys and the boys were girls.

And there was a selection of toys, some quite evidently gendered.

Afterwards the carer claimed that the girls naturally went towards the girls' toys and vice versa with boys.

They were utterley shocked when they were told they had the sexes wrong and that the film actually showed them, very subtly, encouraging the children towards the gendered toys relating the sex the carer thought they were.

Bertrand - I don't think the message that we should morph into grey neutrality is explicit on MN, but it's implicit. For instance, when John Lewis apparently announced its children's clothing would no longer be separated into boy and girl sections, it was all, "Yay go JL," on one AIBU thread. Or the many AIBU threads where people seem to be asking for kudos points for letting their DS go to nursery dressed as a fairy. Or the implication that you are a delusional victim of the patriarchy if you laser your body hair. Or the countless threads where if you are a SAHM, you have to basically justify your existence.

And the way people respond to babies even before they are born based on their movements......